[rrd-users] rrdtool usage questions

[Simon Hobson]

Adriano \"duke\" Bacha wrote:

>I have lots of clients sending lots of info over time (i.e. ram 
>used, disk space)
>and I need to make a panel that I'll monitor all these "sensors"

RRD is good for saving that sort of data - but you will need to do 
your own data input (ie convert from what you are sent to a form 
suitable for rrd updates) and output (typically writing graphing 
scripts and a page to call them from).

>First I thought of saving the data directly into the rrd, but I 
>could have situations where my server has to restart, is it possible 
>to restart saving data into the old rrd file?
>what about the risk of corrupting the file?

Yes, you can restart your server - everything is saved in files on disk.

Now, by "client" do you mean customer supplying data (which by 
definition must be untrusted), or do you mean "piece of software on a 
machine you control" ?
If the former then you may want to apply some sanitising rules to the 
data before presenting it to RRD, otherwise there is no problem.

As well as the documentation, you may find these tutorials 
(especially Rates, normalizing and consolidating) helpful
http://www.vandenbogaerdt.nl/rrdtool/

-- 
Simon Hobson

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